"Teetering on the Edge | Short Fiction"
by catharine j anderson
The metal lap bar clicked into place with a heavy, mechanical thud. It was tight against her thighs. Carly checked it twice. Then three times.
Around her, the amusement park buzzed with summer heat, greasy funnel cake oil, and the high-pitched squeals of the teenagers who surrounded her. Carly didn't do rides. She did spreadsheets, precise project timelines, and clear, rational risk assessments. The universe was cold, indifferent, and governed strictly by physical laws. This was a reality she found comforting. If you understood the mechanics of a thing, you could control it.
Except her life hadn't listened to the mechanics lately. The divorce papers sat on her kitchen counter, unsigned. Her sister’s voice still echoed in her head from yesterday's phone call. “You’re suffocating yourself trying to fix things that aren't broken, Carly. You just can't let go.”
"First time on the Screamer?" the teenager sitting next to her asked, breaking her reverie.
"Third," Carly lied, her knuckles turning white as her hands gripped the foam-padded handle.
The floor dropped away beneath their feet. With a sudden, violent jerk, the train attached to the lift chain.
Catch. Clank. Clank.
The coaster began its slow, agonizing ascent up the two-hundred-foot steel incline. Below them, the park shrunk into a miniature grid of asphalt and neon. Carly’s heart hammered against her ribs, her breathing shallow and sharp. Her brain, as it always did when threatened, went into overdrive, calculating the structural integrity of the steel beams, the probability of mechanical failure, and the velocity of the impending drop. She was trying to think her way through the terror. She was trying to engineer her own safety.
Clank. Clank. Clank.
The horizon expanded. The skyline stretched out endlessly. They were ten feet from the crest. Then five feet.
The chain released. For a fraction of a second, the lead car teetered over the sheer ninety-degree drop.
Carly’s lungs locked. Her instinct screamed at her to tense every muscle in her body. It told her to brace for the impact. It wanted her to hold the bar so hard that her fingers bled.
And then, somewhere in the pit of her stomach, the tight coil of forty years unspooled.
What if I just don't?